Jo told me she broke up with Antawn because she got tired of dancing with his belt buckle.

fwiw

I could use a beta for a story too, if anyone would like to volunteer. I have no idea if it works. It's one of my favorite ideas I've ever come up with, but the first writing didn't flow right, so I've just rewritten it. Now I'm lost in "was it even worth it?" land.

ETA: I'm 5'7", Nick's dad was about 6'5". My head went right into the hollow of his shoulder. Kissing was better if we were both laying down or sitting. I had a crick in my neck a lot.

(I'm so happy to see a gus post!)

Gus has been in Firefly too. We were bogarting the Gus.

Deena, me?

And Susan, don't forget that taller people are also bigger proportionately. I remember someone talking about having met Andre the Giant, and being just amazed at having his hand swallowed in a handshake, how big around the collar of his shirt was, etc. Comparisons of this sort might help get the size differential across, more than just height.

Also, just a quick thing. I was watching the "date" thing on TLC tonight, and the body language person mentioned a tell to look for.

A visually-oriented person, when asked a question, or trying to talk and think their way through an idea, will glance upward. An audially-oriented person will glance sideways, toward their ears. And a kinesthetically-oriented person will glance downward. I thought these were wonderful character clues to imbed offhand in a story someday.

GusGusGusGus!

(flinging mad post-Angel smoochies at Gus while glaring at the bogarters)

Mart, she told me she broke up with Antawn because he was a bit of a mama's boy.

I think I may have figured out how to fix part of the pacing problem in Lucy. Unfortunately, it involves starting it around what is currently page 50, and covering the pertinent material from the earlier chapters in dialogue and flashback.

IOW, work.

Will that make it start when Lucy is already married, then? I need to read this.

Susan, that sounds cogent.

Will that make it start when Lucy is already married, then?

Nope, but at least it'll get her meeting her soon-to-be-husband in Chapter Two rather than Chapter Four, so that's an improvement right there.

Upon re-reading with a few months' distance from finishing the writing, I could actually see why Lucy didn't hook that agent I just heard from--in the first chapter I was really trying to get her relative poverty and utter lack of prospects across, and it reads kinda whiny. ("I'm a poor relation! I have to be a governess in a few years! My cousins were mean to me when we were kids, but if I hadn't grown up with them, I'd be dead of consumption in London years ago!") Whereas on pg. 50 I have her showing up at the house party that's to culminate in her bitchy cousin's wedding, and that cousin being all, "Why did she come? She's an embarrassment to our family." Which gets the point of her circumstances across with much fewer words.

Dealing with having been christened "Anfernee" has got to be tricky enough. Because when you're five, and asked to write your name is first grade?

Anne Rice's birth certificate says something like Howard George Maidenname, though -- apparently her parents really wanted a boy. I think that's worse than Anfernee.

(Not an Anne Rice fan, just possessed with an unfortunate memory for trivia.)