Bev, damn, you asked me in Bitchy (it's still Bitchy in my head; this is what I get for not hanging out in B'cy) and I answered there. Should we move it here?

Oh, and Deb--one of my coworkers today was asking me about my book, and I mentioned you in the context of talking about how I was getting ready to send it to an agent. She asked what you wrote, and I described the premise behind the Child Ballad books. She thought it sounded really exciting, so I'll be sure to remind her when Weaver comes out. So that's one more toward your 3000.

No need. I forgot to note the xpost. I'll pop over and read. Thanks!

Whoo-hoo! Thanks, Susan.

I occurs to me that for the first time, I may not have a chapter section of Matty to read at writers group, assuming I do it next week. With essentially five days unavailable to me for writing - Thursday is baking, errands, packing, Thursday night is Eddie Izzard, off to LA with no computer come Friday morning, not back until late Monday night - I likely won't get this section done. Also, there's a skosh more research I have to do on family crypts, and mausoleums.

Ah well. Maybe I'll read the first chunk of TET instead...

And here's me off for the evening. My cake has arrived and my pork with fresh beans and noodles in about done.

And Astarte has betas. This is of the good.

Deb, have you seen this site for research into English historical details? How much information it has varies from county to county, but I use it a lot to give an appropriate sound to character or place names, and to remind myself of geography. And for many counties, it at least provides clues toward where to go for more detailed info.

Ah well. Maybe I'll read the first chunk of TET instead...

Do do do! It will blow asses out of water like chunks of whale hit by torpedoes!

t /overly enthralled and overly invested

And I'm going to have to trim my novel a bit somehow. I want to keep it under 125K words or so, just to keep it marketable, and I'm sitting on 90K now, with almost 100 pages of longhand still to enter and three chapters that still exist solely in my brain. Eek! I think the thing is trimmable--I've already thought of two major scenes that could go on the cutting room floor--but this will be my first big challenge in self-editing.

And I need to sign off, or I'll be falling asleep at the baseball game tomorrow night.

gronk.

Susan, that's one my already-bookmarked sites, but the specifics - the crypt itself, laid out how (shelves? coffins? shrouds? does it change from generation to generation as they learned that dead bodies rotting under shrouds might be juuuust a skosh unsanitary>) and whatnot, is what I need. Although the next bit is actually going to be in the mausoleum, Lady Susanna's monument. I have to convey the first clues to the reader as to why Andrew Leight-Arnold's ghost is so pervasive: that he's buried in the grounds of the house, unmarked grave, unconsecrated ground, and has basically leached into the place like evil incubistic toxin in the psychic groundwater.

(grinning at Plei)

Oh, I wasn't thinking about the mausoleum question so much as general research questions that might come up over the course of doing a series like yours.

I've decided I'm going to have to go through my novel, scene by scene, and make each scene that doesn't directly involve the hero and heroine interacting with each other justify its existence. I don't want to write a skimpy, bare bones story with the two of them interacting in a vacuum, but the length it's heading toward at this point is both unpublishable and kinda silly.