Oh, and re the wonderful AU novel with the idiot idea to screw with it by the agents?

May I quote the lady who wrote said novel, in her livejournal?

16 may 2003

"You know, Mr. Hemingway, in chapter 13 you mention a horse, and I think that this would make a great three-book series about this guy and his horse, and if he -- the guy, I mean, not the horse -- if he wore a ten-gallon hat we could sell it as a Western. I mean, you've really aborted your story with all this business about the war and fishing and stuff, because you don't follow through about the horse. Now as I see it, his horse is really a great racehorse except that nobody knows it yet ... "

Suh-nerk!

Are the three missing pages missing from the galleys? If so, yuck!

Do you mind if I ask how "Still Life with Devils" is going? I'm dying to see what changes you've made. Personally, I find that revision/rewriting is the most intensely creative phase of the writing process for me. It's the bit where I figure out what I meant to say, and figure out how to sculpt that meaning out of the rough stone of the first draft.

Anne, missing from the galleys. And it's a crucial section: a bit a few hours before the exorcism, when the two women in the house brush hands and both of them get slammed with this intense vision of what had happened when one of the two murder victims (the weaver of the title) had actually died. And they simply missed it. So in midpage, the paragraph goes from one of them saying something like, ah, you couldn't sleep either, to the other woman retching into the kitchen sink.

Gah.

Still Life is moving nicely. I was actually pounding away at it, and am about halfway through the rewrite/editing thing. I'm right at a scene where the use of feng shui by the killer is out in the open. And this scene is going to be way tricky to redo....

Did you want me to send it when I finish the rewrites? I'd love some feedback before it goes back to Jenn.

Two small requests for writerly input:

When you think of "crimson" and "scarlet", which is the darker shade of red? To me, it's crimson--scarlet is a lovely pure red without any orange in it, like a Chinese wedding dress, while crimson is a rich dark blood red, verging toward burgundy. But I wanted to be sure those were the real definitions, and not overly influenced by colors of college football teams or anything. (Speaking here as a woman who described shades of red that might look good in a bridesmaid's dress to her matron of honor as "anything from Alabama crimson to Florida State garnet.")

I'm about to write a sort of Cinderella's transformation scene wherein my heroine gets all prettied up for her first ball and gets to make a grand entrance down an appropriately sweeping staircase. Which of the following should happen?

1. Only the hero is struck by how beautiful she is.

2. Everyone there is struck by the transformation, in their own separate ways--the hero, his sister, the heroine's doting aunt, her bitchy girl-cousin, the boy-cousin she has a crush on who's just gotten engaged to the hero's sister, etc.

3. Everyone BUT the boy-cousin she's had a crush on notices. He says something kinda patronizing along the lines of, "Why, little Lucy, don't you look sweet."

I'm leaning toward the first or third option, but can't decide which is most effective.

Susan, I like option 3. "All grown up." (Yeah, kiss my ass, your loss toots, thinks Lucy, or would if it wasn't a Regency....)

Hmmmm, crimson versus scarlet.

Susan, I went to an embroidery place link, and got their strand samples.

Here we go:

[link]

The very last strand is their scarlet.

Still hunting for an example of crimson.

Going by that, it sounds like scarlet is a bright, clear red, like I thought. The shade I'm thinking of as crimson is something like the barberry or brandywine on that sample.

And yeah, I think you're right. Option three is the most effective.

I also tend to think of scarlet as red that's very slightly to the blue side (no orange or yellow tones).

I tend to think crimson is darker than scarlet, but that could be my 200+ bottles of nail polish talking.

Have fallen in love with the updated The Joy of Writing Sex which is, for me, much more interesting and useful than How to Write a Dirty Story was.

I like both, but have not written as many "dirty stories" as you. I would guess you don't need encouragement to use certain words and junk.

Plei, a bit more Spred for you in Bitchy....