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.

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

Surgery went well, Hubby was up and walking around at 10:00 last night. Doc did a little more than he planned because "if I didn't, I'd just be in there again next year to fix it." Plus he looked a little further up the spine and didn't see anything that should cause problems in the near future.

The accountants of my insurance company deserve to be staked out in the west desert, but the doctors deserve statues and incense and devoted acolytes performing ecstatic rituals at their feet.

Interesting anecdotes re: doctors. Hubby's regular cardiologist's team of assistants are all tiny, perky girls who all wear different color scrubs. I don't know if they're color-coded to job or what. By tiny, I mean very slender and some of them are shorter than I am, which is 5' 2". Dr. Hwang, the electrocardiologist, has a shrine to Buddha in the outer observation room of his surgical suite (I think it was Buddha, I wasn't paying attention to amenities), and his team is all stalwart young men, and their clothing was rather mix and match scrubs.

Boy, I'm tired.

Connie, I'm glad it went well. I hope you're taking care of yourself, too. I know between dh's surgery, and your move, you've got to be stretched to the limit. I'm so glad you have the concert to look forward to, this weekend.