Wow, Deb, that's just strange. Any word yet on what's going on in their heads?

In mememe news, I got a plot bunny today that I'm pretty happy about. It involves the redemption of Portia, the villain of Lucy's story, something I'd been meaning to get around to for the sake of tying up loose ends, but I didn't have any notion what to do with her. Today I finally got an idea, or at least the seed of one that I'm pretty sure has enough potential to grow into a novel.

The reason I'm so happy about this is that one of my 5-year goals is to have three novels completed and ready to market before we give Annabel a brother or sister. Even if having another kid puts my writing on hold, or at least slow motion, for awhile, with three completed books I'll have plenty to market and feel like I've got some forward momentum in the meantime.

The first is the wip, of course, which I'm on pace to finish this year. Then I'm going to go back and redo Lucy's story AGAIN, because I think now that I've been away from it for nearly a year I know how to rework it. Originally I meant to do my navy story or start my Peninsular War paranormal after that, but I think the navy story is going to be at least a trilogy, and one that will involve at TON of research, and the paranormal needs to cook in the subconscious for a few years. So having a Portia story feels really good--it'll give me three loosely linked stories to work with, which definitely has its points from a marketing perspective.

Susan, good on Portia - she ran the risk of being a one-dimensional bitch but I tend to think she could be the most interesting of that group of women.

And in re the publisher, it looks as though we'll have the Cruel Sister deal wrapped up tomorrow, but of course, I've now had my chain jerked so often on this that the latest - which is just blink-making - leaves me snarling.

This has to be the least enthusiastic I've ever personally felt about a proposed book deal. Feh. Don't wanna. Wanna write more Kinkaid Chronicles.

But if they're going to buy the damned thing, I'll find another 55,000 words and I'll give them a damned good book, and then I can move the hell along.

she ran the risk of being a one-dimensional bitch but I tend to think she could be the most interesting of that group of women.

Interesting. I think Anna's the most interesting of the bunch (probably a good attitude to have while in the middle of writing her story!), but in the first book she doesn't have a lot of depth--she's pretty, she's smart, she's rich, because she's always had it easy she's a little spoiled, but she's kindhearted. It's only after I threw a bunch of adversity at her that I saw just how tough she was and how much hidden depth there was under that blithe surface.

deb. I'd hate to think of all that nifty Elizabethan research going to waste.

Toying with the timetable in my head, it occurs to me that Portia's story may well be at least in part a Hundred Days story.

t checks guild laws It appears I'm contractually obligated to include the Duchess of Richmond's ball at the 3/4 point of my story.

Since everyone on earth was apparently at the Duchess of Richmond's ball - I mean, what the hell else did one do the night before an apocalyptic battle with Bonaparte, and Ney and Blucher and the rest of those whack jobs? One danced and flirted and ate overcooked food on a hot June night.

Hey, connie - is all well with surgery stuff, I hope?

And it won't go to waste, not if they're going to pay me for it. But I am cranky and about to write them off. They sure as hell don't get a sniff at the Kinkaid Chronicles.

It's just that DH and I have a running joke about the sheer size of building you'd need for that ball if every single fictional character who's ever been written into it was actually there. Also, from what I know so far about Portia and her guy, they never would've made the guest list. She's a divorced social outcast, he's my next experiment in I Can So Too Write Lower Class Regency Heroes, So There! (They fight crime! Or at least the French, and perhaps the occasional social injustice back home!)

I suspect the DoR's ball was the fictional Mecca it was because of the "eat, drink, for tomorrow the sun shines on La Haye Sainte" aspect.

Oh, I completely understand that, and in the hands of a good writer it pretty much always works. (And with the bad writers, I never make it to the 3/4 point in the book anyway, life being too short to read crappy writing.) But the sheer ubiquity of it cracks me up anyway. Just because common devices are common for good reason doesn't keep me from noticing they're there, checking the number of pages left, and thinking, "Yep, here we are, right on schedule," y'know?

Toying with the idea of finally writing a work of fiction, if only to have all my lies in one place.