The Long Tail of Liberty...

A rather long and thoughtful post…skip if you're in the mood for sexy hijinks! (Go, hijinks!)

I’m no legal historian. In fact, I’m no kind of historian, unless it’s an armchair one.  Or, rather, computer-chair.  My research amuses myself, and informs my stories, that’s all.

That said, I have musings.  And sometimes, current events impinge directly on my historical sensibilities.

I write stories set in the middle ages. For a good portion of that period, liberty was dependent on how much money you could afford to pay the king or local nobleman for his 'goodwill,' or how well you fought in a ring (or again, how much money to had to hire a champion to do it for you), or how well you floated in water, or, most commonly, if the Sherriff of Nottingham was your local law-keeper (bad news for you), or some other local strong-arm was in the mood to plunder. People had very few recognized rights, and they could be compelled to do any number of things, depending on the will of the more powerful.

It was not until King Henry II that the concept of 'common law'--laws that applied to all, and could restrict the king & his agents' actions--came to be an accepted government policy. Next came Magna Carta (based on a charter of liberties from King Henry I), further restricted the government. And so on.

These were hard-fought, and hard-won victories. They were fundamental expansions of the notion of personal liberty and a curb on State's rights, & were therefore core redistributions of power.

Might did not necessarily make right anymore, at least legally.

Liberty requires strong checks on the powers of a State. 

This includes surveillance powers.  It also includes the power to compel private individuals (& companies) to engage in particular actions.

And that is the reason I hope Apple does (& think they should) win their 'appeal' against the FBI's current attempt to force Apple to give them backdoor access so the FBI can bruteforce open the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.

In short, this: There will always be crime. There will not always be liberty.

In fact, in the course of human history, liberty has been a rare and precious commodity for a citizenry against powerful, militarized State.

Be careful what powers you give your government, in a state of fear or anger, to encroach on the civil liberties of its citizens, even to "combat crime."  Because next time, it's going to be your civil liberties.

Removing social media icons from website

Hey kids, this is just a heads up that I'll be removing the social media icons from my website.

While this blog is hosted by Blogger for now (i.e. Google) and there's not much I can do about their tracking, I've grown tired of the incessant tracking and data collection done by organizations & social media, in particular, Facebook.

Even more particularly, a Belgian privacy group had found the Facebook is placing trackers & long-term (i.e. 2 years!) cookies on every user whenever they visit a site that has a FB 'like' button on it. Even if they're not logged in, even if they're not Facebook users.

Eep.  That's just not acceptable to me, that by visiting my site, I'm basically consigning readers to be tracked by Facebook. 

So I'll be taking their 'like/follow' buttons off the website.  You can still find me there, and here's how!

Facebook: 

"Like' page: https://www.facebook.com/KrisKennedyBooks

"Friend' page: https://www.facebook.com/kris.author

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/KrisKennedy

And while I'm at it, I'll remind you to be sure to sign up for the newsletter!  

http://eepurl.com/krTUb

(If you're interested in privacy, there are loads of apps/addons/extentions for every browser that will let you block &/or stop scripts and cookies on websites. Just search your browser's extensions for 'privacy.' Some examples: BetterPrivacy, NoScript (pretty vigorous, so it may take a little time to learn what you want to allow/keep blocking, but it's highly effective), Ghostery, Blur, DisableWebRTC)

Tourney!

Okay, who loves a tourney?  I mean, besides me.

Pennants fluttering off the host's castle ramparts, villagers and nobles mingling in the busy grounds all around, merchants hawking their wares, performers juggling and wrestling.  While up in the lists, knights in shining armour preen and perform for ladies in the stands, who bestow their favors--a sleeve, a scrap of silk, and a smile--on their favorites. 




Originally, though, tournaments didn't much resemble our romantic notion of them.  The 'joust'--two men squaring off and taking a run at each other with lances--yeah, that was a latter addition, and even when the joust came to be part of the tourney, it was a prelude to the main event, the mêlée, a pitched battle with, well, pretty much no rules. 

Occasionally the type of weaponry was predetermined for the mêlée, but other than that, it was basically no-holds-barred fighting.  Lords came with their retinues, often comprised largely of men hired for the sole purpose of helping Lord Such-and-So kick Lord Whos-And-Whats knightly arse.  They came to fight, and to win. 

Oh, and to make a lot of money.  

The big money didn't come from official prizes, though, although those could be quite rich.  But the real prize was...ransom.

First came the cavalry rush with lowered lances, which quickly devolved into hand-to-hand combat, on foot, between the two opposing sides.  Death happened, although combatants were not (usually) killed intentionally.   Why kill a guy, when you can bankrupt him, and enrich yourself in the process?  Capture was a much better business plan. 

The loser had to 'yield,' then he and the victor agreed to the terms of the surrender.  Usually horse & armour were taken, and a price agreed-upon to buy them back.  Remember these horses were worth more money than a villager could make in a dozen lifetimes.  The same for armour.  Terms of the agreement were set down in a contract (yes, they signed a contract, right there on the battlefield, in a section called the 'refuge'.  Recognize it?? Cool, huh?) It was all very official and well-run. 

Except when it wasn't.

Tourneys were a dicey proposition for kings and counts. On one hand, tourneys were good training for war, could be useful for raising money, and for channeling the aggressive tendencies of all those young, male, armed citizens, who were so necessary in times of war, and so...unpredictable at all other times.

But they also wrecked destruction on the countryside and any unlucky villagers caught in the crossfire as the battle raged across the land, including farmland (!!)  Often, two villages were designated as the outer boundaries of the battleground, essentially assuring that armed knights in the heat of battle were going to come roaring through the town and across their tended fields.  Note: No village is on record as ever having requested such a dubious privilege. 

The larger concern for a medieval king was this: tourneys were a breeding ground for petty feuds, vengeance, and, at the top of any medieval lord's mind, rebellion.  

Perfect for romance fiction!  I can feel my brain cells firing up, ready to play with the ceremony and drama of a medieval tournament.  I see a dark-haired, hard-hearted hero, and the conceited, intelligent, alluring daughter of his worst enemy....  

Have you read any books with great tourney scenes??  Spill!

Not Medieval but...Castle!

It's not a medieval castle, but it's got medieval in it. 

While I was wasting time online, I ran into this gorgeous tidbit:

Château de Gudanes, in the Midi-Pyrenees region of France, built in the mid-18th century, was contructed on the site on a 13th century fortress.  Those medieval towers are within the Château today. 

The castle fell into disuse and survived destruction during the French Revolution. 






In the 1990's, an investment company bought it, planning to turn it into luxury apartments, but were denied permits (Go France!) 




Again it fell into disuse, until an Australian couple bought it and are now renovating it, very publicly. They have a website, blog, and run workshops.

What part of the restoration would you start with?  I'd be uncovering those medieval towers!

Interestingly, this region of France plays into my current work-in-progress.  I keep running into that, while I'm wasting time online.  I think I should take it as a hint and get back to writing.

More pictures:
Wimp
Château de Gudanes site

Sizzling Summer Heat - A Rock*It Reads contest

A heads up from the Silent One (that would be me, in relation to this blog)....

Rock*It Reads is kicking off the summer with a giveaway and contest.  10 ebooks plus a chance at a Kindle Paperwhite.  Signing up for the contest gets you signed you up for the Rock*It Reads individual authors' newsletters too, so you can stay informed of new releases. 

Win a Kindle Paperwhite!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't Buy My Books

Not today.

Today, I want you to buy fellow romance author Jackie Barbosa's books.  Late last week, Jackie lost her seventeen year old son in a car accident on the way to school.

I will never be able to comprehend the pain she and her and family are going through.  There's nothing I can say, nothing truly meaningful any of us can do when someone suffers this kind of shocking, tragic loss.  The best we can do is stand nearby, in spirit, and just be.

And this week especially, we can buy her books.

A whole herd of romance writers are banding together this week to spread the word about Jackie's wonderfully sexy books, and let you know that if you haven't tried them, now's a great time to check out this prolific writer.

Jackie writes scorching historical romance, urban fantasy, and erotic contemporary romance. You can find her books, with excerpts and links, here: http://www.jackiebarbosa.com/books/ 

A memorial fund has also been set up in her son’s name. Details to donate can be found here. Any and all donation amounts are greatly appreciated. 

Here are some of her hot sexy covers to get you excited about finding a new favorite author to love!

The Magic of Showers Or; The Shower and The Artist

It's a pretty well-established fact, that a lot of people get their best ideas in the shower. 

It's true for me.  Maybe not the best, but certainly an awful lot of good ones.

Dopamine is part of the reason, no doubt.  Anytime you can get a good dopamine shower, you'll be happier all around, and nice hot H2O showers tend to trigger the release of dopamine.

Additionally, they say (you know, 'them') negative ions have an effect on us.  They show up wherever there's water and attach to things like dust particles and negative ruminations about why multi-billionaire dollar international hedge funds can get away with a multitude of nefarious, self-serving crimes, while you can't go five miles over the speed limit to get your cat to the vet before she has her kittens in your lap and get away with it.  (You ruminate on this stuff too, right??) 

The ions drag attach to all this and drag it down, down to the ground, leaving the air fresher and your mind more capable of handling barking dogs and multi-billionaire dollar hedge fund managers and all the other impurities life slings your way.

And of course, for many moms, showers are The One And Only place we can get five minutes alone.

Sort of alone.  It's good enough.  This is powerful stuff, people.  Wet Alone Time matters.

But the real reason showers work is probably far more mundane, and far more important.  We're stationary.  We're reflective.  We're quiet.  We're not inundating our brains and senses with stuff.  Shiny, Bright, Sparkling, Noisy, OMG Look At This Funny Cat! stuff. 

There are no new ideas bombarding us in the shower, which is why you can get so many new ideas in the shower.

Reflective time matters.  Wandering minds matter.  A lot.  But we're so often plugged in and turned on, getting 'input' by bad music and good music and bad news and good news and other people's ideas about how to feel and think and be with it all.  There's always some heartbreaking new tragedy and some inspiring new triumph and it's just exhausting if you slow down and actually notice it all. 

Which we generally don't.  More often we run through it all, like a kid with a bubble wand.


But in the shower, there's nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Just you and your mind.  Your quiet mind and your wet body.  And the ions, of course.

So for me, shower time is pretty sacred.  No technology, no kids, just me and the ions.  And all those ideas.....

Do you get ideas in the shower?  Or is somewhere/something/someone else your idea incubator?

Time Travelling Writer

That's me these days.  Back and forth in time between several stories: a medieval, a Elizabethan, and a contemporary.

I'm liking it a lot--I don't like being stuck, so when I've hit a wall on one story, I can flip to another and still be productive.

Note: This is not me.

If I can't write on any of then, that's a big red flag there's something else going on.


Such as, I'm avoiding something.  Or I need a break.  Or I've  been buried beneath a pile of undone laundry that's just taken over the house.  Zombie laundry.


Whatever.  It's always something.


I used to think that me being stuck was a bit of a cop-out. I had a rather linear interpretation of being stuck: it meant I wasn't trying hard enough.


Well, really now.   How unwriterly of me, how unimaginative.  There are a hundred reasons I could be stuck.  (To wit, the zombie laundry pile.)

Note: The empty creative well.  Deep, huh?

I now know that sometimes you truly are stuck,  that "Can't" doesn't always mean "Won't" and that sometimes, the creative well has simply been depleted while your head was bent over the keyboard.


Got to make sure it gets refilled.


Fortunately, a change can be as good as a break, and that's where time-travelling comes into play.

Oil painting, 1620's by C.C. van Wieringen 

At present, I'm researching and writing about the major political players during Edward III's realm as well as import and export customs during that period; Elizabethan timepieces and the saltwater-logged stragglers from the Spanish Armada who washed up on Irish shores (did you know that happened??  Yes, it did!!); and financial fraud and money laundering schemes of the 21st century.

It's good to travel.

When you read my stories, I hope they make you feel like you're travelling too! 

Summer Doldrums

Summertime doesn't lend itself to full-depth writing, at least not for me.  School is out and so is the slip-n' slide.  Kids are everywhere, as are blue skies, green forests, and salty water.  I heed the call.

I think this has changed since becoming a parent.  I'm fairly certain I wrote with the same general velocity during summers as during the cold, grey days of winter.  It was much more about whether the muse was showing up than if the kids needed me to help carry the raft for them.

I think this is a good thing, for lots of reasons.  I think it's good to flex and change, to disrupt my routines for no reason but maybe a little fun. I might, sometimes, just the teeniest bit, get a little too work-focused.

It's also good because getting away from work and yes, even getting away from story, also feeds hte ceatove fire.  I'm the kind f girl for whom like begets like--writing begets more writing, eating tiramisu begets eating more tira-- 

Well, you get the point.

But there's also space for, well, space.  For all the loves of my life, which includes family as much as story.  Room for all the angles of who I am, which if friend and wife and mom. The past few summers have been all about deadlines, and my family got shortchanged in a major way.

It happens. It's the business. 

But this summer, I'm letting the other parts get top billing, and writing is taking a bit of a back stage. The stories are percolating, especially when I lay in bed at night or, if I have time, first thing in the morning, before I crawl out of bed.  I write down ideas, some days even take a few hours to work, btu it's all split up by jogs down the block after the ice cream truck and trips to the beach and bike rides on trails. For the most part, I'm letting the stories do their own thing this summer without a lot of interference from me. 

I'm pretty sure the stories will be all the better for it.  I'm fairly certain I will be too. 

I hope your summer is a shaping up to be time for you to follow the loves of your life, too! 

We'll catch up in the autumn!

Naming Characters

Naming characters is so much fun!  Except when it's not!  

Sometimes names just appear on the page, as if by magic.  They're perfect.  And by 'perfect' I mean they're appropriately lyrical and hopefully flush with meaning, and also good in bed.  You know, for shouting out while in bed.  

You'd be surprised how many names this eliminates. 

Or heck, I don't know you. Maybe you wouldn't be surprised at all.  That's good with me.

First names are most important, first names and nicknames.  Last names matter less, especially in the middle ages.   For me, last names are like a frame for a picture.  They can do good work--enhance and and highlight and, well, frame--but they're not the work.


One thing I sometimes do when the perfect name doesn't magically appear on the page, is come up with words that are "flush with meaning," but would sound silly in English--like liar or sexy or magic or shapeshifter--then find translations of those words in different languages. 


This can be especially lucrative for last names and nicknames.  Yep, 'lucrative,' because the right name is wealth, isn't it?  As a reader you know that.  The perfect name is worth its weight in gold.

Can you guess which names in any of my books that appeared like magic, and which I had to work at?    

What names of fictional characters have you loved?  Any you hated?

PDQ: Pushing Them Into It

Note to Self: I am writing a novella.  A super-sexy novella.

Repeat, I am writing a novella.  A super-sexy novella.

This requires The Sexy to get rolling pretty darn quick.  PDQ.  And I'm surprised by how challenging this has been.

I love writing about passion and desire.  From flirtation to consummation, and every permutation in between, I love it all.  My stories pivot on electric sensual tension, which often means denied sensual attraction and the slow build of irresistible forces.

Partly that's because the time period demands restraint, or a solid explanation for exceptions.  Also, my heroes and heroines tend to be, um, let's say "so fiercely at odds that it sometimes involves ropes" and be done with it.

But mostly the restraint is there because it takes time to build the respect / affection / psychological attraction that are essential to truly scorching physical attraction.

And yet, I am committed to a super-sexy novella.  Time is not my friend.

Something's gotta give.

It's the slow build.  :)

So today, I am going to strip away much of the the oh-so-pretty words and the elegant set-ups and push my hero and heroine into It.  Or darn close to It.  PDQ. 

New Blog!!

 Look, I'm Doing A Blog!

Trying my hand at a very loose blog.  "Loose" as in "It will show up intermittently, when writing stories leaves me time to write blogs."  "Loose" as in "I'll blog about whatever story-ness is on the radar," from research tidbits to what makes a hero to exclusive excerpts to...whatever else.  :)

 So pull up a chair, pop the blog in your RSS feed, and listen to the silence, occasionally interspersed with blogginess.  :)  And  whenever you have something to say, please say it!