OK, here goes:

Dear Friends and Family—

I apologize in advance for sending out a mass email like this, and I promise not to make a habit of it in the future.

As some of you know, I’m a writer. I did some freelancing for one of the local weeklies back when I lived in Philadelphia, and I’ve sold a few magazine articles, including this one, which appeared in Marriage Partnership last winter: [link] Also, I’ve finished a 100,000-word novel, and I’m working on my second while I search for a publisher for the first.

Now that Dylan and I have a baby, I’ve decided to make my writing more than a hobby by becoming self-employed as a freelancer. I specialize in writing and editing resumes and cover letters. While most resume writers focus on managerial and executive clients, I like to help entry- and mid-level workers take the next step up in their careers by giving them application packages that stand out in the crowd.

I also do general freelance commercial writing, including press releases, nonprofit fundraising materials, newsletters, ad copy, and proofreading/copyediting.

While I’m not going to make a habit of spamming my friends and relatives with advertising, I thought I’d send this one-time email to let y’all know what I’m doing. If you’re interested or know anyone who might be, I have a website at [link]

And on a purely personal note, if you want to see the latest baby pictures, Annabel has a blog at [link]

--Susan

My only thought, Susan, is that I think you can just drop the first paragraph. You say later that this is a one-time e-mail. I think it's a perfectly reasonable letter to send and I don't think you need to apologize for it.

Yay...I think that is perfect, Susan. BTW, I'm getting serious use out of your old writer's market this week.

Thanks, Ginger and erika!

Yup - first paragraph not needed. Otherwise? Looks good.

OK, and now a long question about the fun writing:

So I'm working on a scene early in Anna with the following goals:

1. Jack and Anna must feel attraction to each other, and it must be more obvious both to them and the reader than the sublimated good chemistry they've had in earlier chapters. Jack is self-aware enough to recognize and acknowledge his feelings. Anna, NSM, but that's OK, because she's been in a miserable marriage that ended less than a week ago when her husband was killed. So she's pretty numb, and guilty over feeling glad to be free of him beneath the numbness.

2. A certain Lt. Tracy, who will eventually be the blackmailing villain of the piece, needs to notice that there's a vibe between Anna and Jack inappropriate for an officer's very recent widow and an enlisted man.

The scene is this: Everyone is part of a wagon convoy (probably the wrong word, but I've got ships on the brain) bound for Lisbon. Anna is there because with her husband dead she has no reason to stay with the army, and she plans to take the first ship back to England. Jack and Lt. Tracy are there, along with 40 or so other riflemen, because they've been charged with protecting the wounded soldiers and civilians of the wagon train. It's night, they've made camp, and Anna has been dining with others of the officer class, including Lt. Tracy. In her numb state, she politely leaves early so she can go back to her tent and rest.

Except along the way she happens to walk by the campfire where Jack and his friends are telling stories and singing. She recognizes the song they're singing, and in the way of musical people, can't resist joining in, and the next thing she knows, she's warming her hands by the campfire and showing off her fine alto harmonizing skills.

The next song the group starts singing is The Trooper and the Maid (warning, link has sound), which is both frankly bawdy and insanely catchy. What I want to do is have Anna and Jack get so caught up in the music and the firelight and their chemistry that they end up dancing around the fire together. This allows me to escalate the sexual tension nicely by getting some physical contact going, and to give Lt. Tracy a good and proper shock when he witnesses this little scene. But I'm wondering if it's just too implausible given all the complications and class differences.

Thoughts?

She's just been widowed for a week? But she does know Jack and is comfortable with him. I think she'd hesitate. I'm assuming Jack's a gentleman, even if not of that explicit class, so he'd probably back away from contact politely. Depending on Anna's level of disorientation from her normal way of life, the courtesy might be sufficent to reassure her that it's not completely inappropriate.

does that make sense?

Well, I may be working too hard to justify this scene just because it's so pretty and vivid in my head, but I'm picturing Anna just a tiny bit tipsy from drinking more wine than normal with dinner, being knocked out of her gloom and numbness by the music and camaraderie around the campfire, in the way you often have surprising bursts of joy at a funeral or wake, IME. Next thing she knows there's a really catchy tune, and she's kinda toe-tapping and dancing, and Jack kinda playfully bows to her and asks her to dance. Both of them are thinking that of course it's just a joke because of course The Sergeant and The Cavalry Captain's Widow are worlds apart, but then, bam!, chemistry and attraction.

Did I mention how pretty this all is in my head? And how it's the only place in the book it could work, because they're going to be captured by the French and then be secret lovers and then she's going to go back to England and he's going to lose an arm at Badajoz so I can get him out of the army and find a way to happily ever after?

I think maybe touch is stronger than movement in terms of setting up attraction. Maybe they sing a more haunting ballad, and the other voices drop away as people listen to their harmony (or it can be a somewhat obscure song that only they know, which further sets up a bond between them) and they sing to each other in the golden firelight, and realize at the end of the song they are holding hands?

Susan, I'm curious about how Anna knows the song in the first place. Granted that gently-bred girls picked up some unlikely stuff in those days, as soon as you listed the song title (I'm familiar with it), I found myself wondering where on earth she'd been hanging about to pick that one up.

Also, army widow or no, surely she's in mourning of some sort? Granted, moving army with all the exigencies entailed by that, but dancing? I think she'd need to be more than a little tipsy to forego convention to that degree.

One other question: she's the widow of an officer, yes? Would Tracy or anyone else allow her to walk back to her tent unescorted, through possibly the dregs of the Peninsular army? They weren't a genteel group, by and large.

Sorry to be blighting - it really is a pretty scene you're envisioning - but, well, questions.