I love reading the detailed "why" answers to the speed thing, but I rarely get them, or grok them, or whatever. Yes, I am a big old writerly freak. No, I'm not being cute - apparently, I really am freaky in the way I write. Je ne comprennez pas. C'est la guerre. Possibly because, while writing, I don't see myself as actually doing something, in the same way that telling a ghost story around the fire wouldn't be mechanically doing something. I'm just telling a story. I'm learning that way is weird, though. Not bad, just weird.

Allyson, largely yes and yes on what Amy said about price points. I don't give a damn personally - I'd he happier paying $30 for a slim, telling, beautifully researched killer biography than one padded for page length with possible garbage, for instance - but I think there's a huge perception, both on the part of the purchasing editor and of the buying public, that paying $20 for 20,000 words is somehow a rip.

Not so weird. Well, that is to say, from what I can gather, I'm fairly certain that I write the same way you do, deb. Which, I suppose, doesn't make it not weird. It just makes me weird right along with you.

It just makes me weird right along with you.

We need to go sit around the fire and speed-bard.

Woot!

I love my brother-in-law (the English one, not the psychotic one).

He and my sister keep a flat in Kent, just outside London. Nick (my sister Alice is also married to a Nicholas, which shows remarkable good sense on her part) is there two or three times a year, dealing with the flat, and with other family property and business.

I just asked (since he's been home far more recently than I've been there) for certain specifics for the fourth book in the series, Cruel Sister. They were:

a) was rundown and suffered at least some Luftwaffe bombings during WWII;

b) is near the river, either bank of the Thames; and

c) is currently being "improved" by yuppies doing property.

I immediately got back the following:

A. The Isle of Dogs (my note: for those who don't know London, it's by the Tower Hamlets. Not really an island; it's a peninsula, the area on the north bank enclosed by the signature U-bend of the Thames to the east of the City, opposite Greenwich.)

On (a), I assume it was bombed heavily during the war because of the docks there, though I'm not sure of this. It certainly meets requirements (b) and (c) perfectly. It was working class, but now boasts Canary Wharf/Canada Tower (the tallest buildings in the UK, maybe Europe) as well as expensive housing by the river restoration there.

Help me brainstorm, y'all. I'm working on a scene in which Lucy is getting measured for her first-ever ballgown. I want to have her bitchy cousin (Portia) there being all bitchy, but in a way that doesn't quite cross the line into obvious torment that would draw the censure of the other people in the room. Any ideas for things Portia might say or do to try to undermine Lucy? All I've thought of so far is questioning Lucy's ideas about what she wants to wear, and/or trying to trick her into choosing something unflattering.

Ooh, Deb, that sounds perfect! One of the Deborah Crombie mysteries was set there, and she actually covered a lot of that -- the bombings, the yuppification, etc. I knew nothing about that area, and it was fascinating. (Not that I know much about London in general, but still.)

Also, you're very lucky to write the way you do. I think it must have to do with the confidence and power in your natural voice, which I think is very well suited to the stories you tell. And "speed-bard" made me grin. I'd love to sit in for that.

(drags head out of research on UXB methods and units, in preparation for starting fourth book)

Susan, who else is there? That makes a huge difference. Is it all women, or is James there, or Sebastian?

What about backhanded "compliments", Susan? Something like (and this will suck 'cause I'm really tired), "Yes that color will look lovely with your darker complexion." (Because being quite fair was all the fashion then, right?)

All women. Just Lucy, Georgiana, Portia, and the dressmaker. Maybe Lady Mowbray, but I don't think so.

Amy, have you read any Nicholas Blake? The Nigel Strangeways mysteries? He (Blake) was actually Cecil Day-Lewis, poet laureate of England (and yes, of course, Daniel and Tamsin's father), and one of his later mysteries is set partly on the Isle of Dogs.